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Anna and her family were elated at the near instant success
of Black Beauty. Towards the end of her writing there
was no doubt that Anna's life was ebbing away. It may
be that the writing of her book had prolonged her life.
Anna
was not to survive long after the publication of her
book and she never saw the phenomenal success of the
book nor the profound impact it had on the care of
horses. Anna's last few months were ones of
debilitating pain and total confinement to the house.
On Thursday 25th April 1878, Anna Sewell died in her
parent's home in Old Catton. She was 58 years old.
The
following Tuesday, on the 30th April, Anna's mother Mary
watched from the drawing room window as the horse-drawn
hearse pulled up outside. It was a cruel irony that the
undertaker, perhaps with a sense of occasion, had
harnessed all of the horses in bearing-reins. A very
distressed Mary rushed from the house and had the
drivers remove them from every horse in the cortege.
It
was to be Anna's final journey to Lammas near Buxton
where her parents had married fifty-nine years earlier.
She was buried close to her grand-parents of whom Anna
had been so fond. There Anna's grave remained until
September 1984 when without warning or permission,
bull-dozers arrived and destroyed trees, graves and
tombstones including that of Anna's.
This desecration caused total outrage, but despite much
effort, the graves were never re-established. Instead,
the gravestones were cleaned and repaired. Anna's
gravestone is set into a flint wall outside the old
Quaker meeting house in Lammas. On either side of
Anna's gravestone is that of her parents and her
grandparents. |
